The Deputy Attorney-General, Dr. Justice Srem-Sai has rejected Atta Akyea’s arguments that he did not appear in court on Tuesday, August 11 during the legal vacation on grounds of tiredness.
The lead counsel for former National Signals Bureau Director Kwabena Adu-Boahene and his wife Angela Adjei Boateng absented himself from court proceedings on Tuesday despite the Chief Justice’s directive for the case to procced although there is legal vacation.
Atta Akyea in an interview on TV3’s Daily Brief, Tuesday, insisted that courts are on legal vacation and he absented himself to rest.
He noted that legal vacation has been set aside for lawyers to rest after actively engaging in trials and he will uphold that practice.
However, reacting to Atta Akyea on the same programme, the Deputy A-G explained that the issue is not whether a lawyer is tired, but whether a court proceeding should be halted simply because counsel says they are unavailable.
He argued that allowing individual lawyers’ tiredness or private circumstances to determine whether cases are heard could undermine the effective administration of justice.
“The question is not whether counsel is tired or not. If courts were run based on tiredness of individual lawyers, you can imagine what would happen in a democracy,” he said.
The Deputy Attorney-General acknowledged that lawyers may have genuine reasons for being unable to attend court, including tiredness.
However, he said the appropriate procedure is for counsel to appear before the judge and formally request an adjournment.
“There are situations where lawyers may have genuine reasons why they cannot come to court and it may even be true that tiredness may be one of those reasons,” he stated.
“But the solution to that problem is not to sit in your office and say that you will not attend court because of legal vacation. If counsel has a problem or is tired, what counsel needs to do as far as professional legal practice is concerned is to appear before the Judge and make a case for adjournment based on the circumstance. Then the Judge will consider your plea,” he stated on Daily Brief, Tuesday, August 11, 2026.
Srem-Sai further criticised what he described as an attempt to suggest that only certain cases had been scheduled for hearing during the legal vacation.
According to him, the claim that the arrangement was targeted at specific individuals was “completely false” and amounted to a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.
“Counsel, I understand him to be saying that it is only his case or some specific few cases that are scheduled to be heard in the vacation. That is completely false,” he said.
The Deputy Attorney-General maintained that legal practitioners cannot unilaterally determine whether a case should proceed or be adjourned, stressing that such decisions rest with the court.
He said creating the impression that a lawyer’s tiredness or personal circumstances should prevent a court from sitting was the wrong approach to the issue.
Legal vacation is intended for lawyers to rest – Atta Akyea justifies absence in court
